SOPA, in its original form, is all but dead. The White House spoke up last weekend, saying that it would oppose (veto) any legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cyber security risk, or undermines innovation on the global Internet. However, as heroic as the rhetoric may sound to proponents of internet freedom, these bills are still alive, kicking, and hazardous.

The most blatant part of SOPA and PIPA, DNS blocking, isn’t likely to be included in future versions. It would have let the Justice Department order internet service providers to block domains of any site suspected of copyright infringement. It’s the same method used by China to censor its citizens’ internet activity. In a bill full of terrifying legislation, DNS blacklisting was the most frightening bit, and we can thank the Obama administration (in response to the tech community’s deafening protests) for effectively killing it.

That doesn’t, however, mean that SOPA and PIPA are benign and couldn’t kill the internet — and free speech — as we know them.

Anti-circumvention

In brainwashing, one of the first principles to be taught is an extreme fear of questioning the rules (or so I’m told). Consider the anti-circumvention provision to be SOPA’s equivalent. SOPA and PIPA don’t save their powers exclusively for sites that host copyrighted content; they also put any site that encourages circumvention of restrictions in their crosshairs.

What does this mean? Last week we ran a post that lists the most obvious ways to bypass potential SOPA restrictions. If a final bill were to pass with the anti-circumvention provision in place, Geek.com would probably have to withdraw that post, or risk facing the wrath of the Justice Department.

Additionally, any site that hosts user content (social networks, message boards, YouTube, etc.) would have to police what is said on its site, or risk being accused of encouraging circumvention. Not only would this kill free speech on the internet, it would be extremely costly and burdensome for a huge number of websites.

Additionally, providers of VPNs (Virtual Private Networks), proxies, or other anonymization software could be in trouble. If you provide one of these services, you may be required to build in censorship mechanisms (which would guarantee that nobody would pay for your service) or risk getting cut off. Many of these providers do business outside of the US, but the DOJ could still have US payment processing (like major credit cards and Paypal) and advertising blocked for those services.

Immunity for overstepping boundaries

Also still on the table is the “vigilante” provision. It says that if an ISP takes matters into its own hands and overblocks non-infringing users or voluntarily blocks sites, it is immune to any sort of penalty. The only requirement is that the provider acts “in good faith” and bases its decision on “credible evidence.” Who decides what does and doesn’t fall into those subjective categories? Why, the DOJ, of course.

Worse still, the vigilante provision could be used to bypass all legal oversight whatsoever. Copyright industries could create blacklists of sites, and pressure ISPs — on threat of court orders — to voluntarily block them. The ISPs would be in no danger for implementing the blocks (after all, it’s in “good faith”), but they could potentially face great danger for not implementing them.

DMCA on Steroids

As it stands, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) allows copyright owners to remove infringing content from the web with the DMCA notice-and-takedown procedure. Though this has been abused time and time again (is that the “Megaupload song” I hear?), SOPA and PIPA would make these powers look mild in comparison.

Copyright holders, under SOPA, would have the power to get an unopposed court order to cut off foreign websites from advertising and payment processing. There would be no legal examination of the takedown; copyright industries would be free to essentially shut down foreign websites, rather than simply requesting the removal of infringing content.

Censored Google

Though DNS blacklisting was effectively killed with the White House statement, it isn’t clear whether a bill that ordered the censorship of search results would be signed by President Obama.

As it stands, SOPA and PIPA would force Google (and other search engines) to remove results that link to infringing content. Though Google has gotten ribbed for its recent prominent featuring of Google+ results, the service is mostly a fair and uncensored smattering of what’s on the internet. SOPA and PIPA would make it a crime for Google to exist without policing its results.

What’s Next?

It’s worth repeating: these bills aren’t dead. There are too many copyright industry dollars and lobbyists trying to ram some version of SOPA and PIPA through congress.

After the White House’s statement, it’s tempting to view Obama as a hero for internet freedom. But, make no mistake, he’s a politician who knew that he would potentially lose many votes by supporting the original version of SOPA. It’s a move that internet freedom advocates can appreciate, but we wouldn’t bet against his eventually signing a watered-down version of the legislation. He has proven, time and time again, to be quick to compromise, his Vice President has a long track record as a supporter of copyright legislation, and he also likes those big Hollywood donations.

Of course 2012 is also an election year. If the copyright industries can’t get the votes for the legislation that they want now, they may bide their time and hope that a Republican wins the general election. It isn’t entirely clear where the remaining GOP candidates stand on the bill, but Ron Paul (who’s really more libertarian than republican) is the only one to voice explicit opposition to SOPA.

The coming weeks will tell us a lot about the future of this potentially internet-killing legislation. The last week’s developments are worth celebrating; but these bills still have the legs — and billions of dollars — to live to fight another day.